Gutting legislation

What role does the Supreme Court serve? Seems to me it plays two roles. First, to pass final judgement on whether a legal case has been ruled on correctly by a lower court. Secondly, to rule on the Constitutionality of a law. In the Voting Rights Act (VRA) decision, five of the justices decided the court's role was to overrule a law that Congress had passed because the justices didn't like that law.  I don't see it as the court's role to delete legislation without constitutional cause. In the court's decision over the Defense of Marriage Act, five justices acted appropriately (it seems to me), ruling that a law passed by Congress was unconstitutional because it violated the "equal protections" clause. Some justices get it - some don't.

From Daily Kos
(Click on the link to read more)

Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia is outraged - outraged that the majority of the Court overturned the Defense of Marriage Act, writing in his dissent that "We have no power under the Constitution to invalidate this democratically adopted legislation" and that the decision represents an "exalted notion of the role of this court in American democratic society." Because, don't you know, DOMA was passed by Congress democratically and therefore the Court should not touch it.

One question: Where was this Scalia when the Supreme Court was deciding to gut the Voting Rights Act, which was renewed by Congress in 2006?

Oh, that's right: Scalia was one of the justices gutting the VRA. That bill was passed in 2006 by a 390 to 33 vote in the House and 98 to zero in the Senate. By contrast, DOMA was passed in 1996 by a 342 to 67 vote in the House and 85 to 14 in the Senate. And public opinion has undergone a sea change since then. So the "We have no power under the Constitution to invalidate this democratically adopted legislation" argument applies far more to the VRA.

But that's Scalia. His only consistency is in service of bigotry